


Leave to Various Future Times

by Jennie_D



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cisco Ramon-centric, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24682294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennie_D/pseuds/Jennie_D
Summary: Cisco Ramon is a bright young engineer with a future at STAR Labs. One of Harrison Wells' favored proteges.But then he makes a small discovery.It changes things.(Or - what if Cisco, not Hartley, had learned the particle accelerator was going to explode?)
Relationships: Cisco Ramon & Dante Ramon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

It began because Hartley was bragging about Latin. 

Specifically, bragging about how he spoke Latin with Doctor Wells. About how they played chess together and discussed Pliny’s writings in the original language and how _obviously_ they were the only two worthy intellects at STAR Labs. 

Cisco rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the simulation in front of him. Tried to fade Hartley’s over-educated drawl into the background as he watched virtual particles smash into each other on his screen. 

Honestly, he had no clue what Doctor Wells saw in Hartley. Harrison Wells was a once in a generation genius. He did the kind of work that would revolutionize the world, would change the course of human history. More than that, he helped those around him do their best work, helped them be more, be better. 

These past six months at STAR Labs, Cisco felt like something in him was cracking open, coming alive. He always seemed to be on the verge of new discoveries, new revelations. Because Wells was always there with encouragement, always telling him to chase his wildest ideas. 

And this particle accelerator they were building? Wells was actually trusting Cisco’s judgement, using his ideas, respecting him. Cisco had never had a boss like this, a teacher like this. Wells was inspiring. 

Hartley was just a dick. 

“Harrison and I have been going through _Naturalis Historia_ together,” the dick was saying. “It’s been a fascinating intellectual project. Leads to some truly stimulating conversation. Shame you can’t join us, Cisco.”

Cisco restarted the simulation, hitting the keyboard a little harder than necessary. “Yeah, shame. Guess it was a waste of my time to take particle physics in college instead of studying a dead language. Must be fun reading old books with cutting edge science like ‘the crops are failing because menstruation is evil.’”

Hartley’s smile grew sharper, and he moved from his own desk to loom over Cisco’s monitor. 

“That’s your problem, Cisco. You’ve never had any sense of history, any real intellectual curiosity.”

Cisco bit back a groan. He did not want to deal with Hartley’s shit today. He wanted to say ‘fuck it,’ wanted to walk out of the room and leave Hartley to his own devices. Go work on hardware with Ronnie or bother Caitlin as she tested samples. 

But Wells had put the two of them together, asked them to program this simulation, observe every possible outcome. Asked them to come back to him with a report after lunch hour. And Cisco didn’t want to disappoint Doctor Wells. 

“You know, you really ought to do something during your off hours to stimulate your mind, Cisco. What do you even do when you go home? Watch your little science fiction shows?”

Cisco tugged at his Battlestar Galactica shirt. He shifted in his seat and glanced quickly at Hartley. He looked impossibly smug. 

Cisco brought his eyes down and stared at the particles moving on screen. Stared at the shape of the virtual accelerator, at the beams and the bolts and the wiring. Stared so hard his vision blurred. 

“But honestly, Cisco, it would be for your own good. Doctor Wells appreciates those who try to better themselves.”

“Don’t know why he keeps you around then.”

“Don’t be cute, Cisco. I’m trying to help you.”

“You’re trying to bother me is what you’re doing.”

“Oh!” Hartley snapped as if he'd had some revelation. “Why not try to pick up another language? It’s hard to do as an adult, but being multilingual really does expand your range of thought.”

Cisco turned to look up at Hartley. The asshole was smiling down at him with artificial pleasantness.

“Seriously dude?”

“What?” The feigned innocence on Hartley’s face was razor thin. 

Cisco’s nails bit into the palm of his hand. “I’ve been bilingual since forever. And you know that, so stop fucking with me.”

Hartley’s smile curved into condescension. “Well, I suppose you might be bilingual. But I don’t know if you can really call yourself _multilingual._ You aren’t a student of languages. You don’t really even speak _proper_ spanish. Your grammar can be horrific, not to mention your constant mispronunciation of cognates-”

Cisco bit down on his lip, hard. He could take snipes at his Spanish from his abuela or his parent’s neighbors or pop’s cousins. But he’d be fucked if he was going to sit here and listen to this from Hartley fucking Rathaway, king of entitled white boys. He just couldn’t do it. Not even for Doctor Wells.

He stood and stormed out of the room, his steps harsh on the metal floor.

“Oh, did I upset you?”

“Fuck off, Hartley!”

Cisco could practically _feel_ Hartley’s slimy grin behind him. He knew this was what Hartley wanted, knew the other scientist would love to give Doctor Wells the report alone. Would love to smile, and present Cisco’s work, and say something like ‘that Ramon, he’s just so irresponsible.’

But right now, Cisco didn’t care. He needed a minute. He’d been working hard, Doctor Wells would understand if he took a fucking minute. 

Cisco kept walking, spiraling down corridors, until he reached the particle accelerator. He hoped to find Ronnie down here, maybe ask if he could tag along for lunch with him and Caitlin. But the accelerator was empty, oddly quiet for midday. 

He’d never had time in the accelerator alone before. It was always full of people working, building, chattering excitedly about what they were creating together. 

Cisco felt his mood shifting, his anger quieting, a small smile slipping to his lips. 

Hartley was...Hartley. But he could endure it. It was worth it to be able to be here, to change the world. To change the world with Doctor Wells. 

One of the glass pod doors was open, so Cisco slipped inside the grand accelerator itself. It was wonderful, being in the accelerator alone. Having the time to appreciate it as it was meant to be appreciated. He ran his hands over the wiring, admired the engineering, reveled in the design. 

There was something beautiful about machines, something soothing about how disparate parts came together to perform miracles. Especially a machine like this. A hundred minds working as one, building something incredible. Wells, Ronnie, Cisco. This was theirs, and it was perfect, and it would - 

Cisco’s eyes fell on a bolt. His steps stuttered.

Huh. That was odd. 

He crouched down to get a better look. Found a wrench and slowly unscrewed it. Turned the bolt around in his hands. 

The shape was off. Thinner. Only slightly, but slightly mattered a great deal in engineering. 

Cisco took note of the bolt’s location. They needed to make sure they replaced this before any testing. If the structure of the accelerator was too weak to contain the particles they were working with, the results could be catastrophic. 

But then Cisco looked left. The next bolt was slightly off too. And the next, and the next, and the next - 

For a second, he wondered whether he might be wrong. After all, the minds working here were the best in the world, obviously they wouldn’t make such a simple mistake. It was more likely Cisco was misremembering what the bolts were supposed to look like. 

But then he thought back to the simulation that morning. He had stared and stared and stared at the virtual accelerator, burned it into his memory avoiding the sound of Hartley’s voice. Doctor Wells had said the simulation was perfectly to spec. But he was wrong. The bolts were wrong. Somehow, this had fallen through the cracks. 

Cisco pushed himself to his feet. They were planning to bring the accelerator online in less than a month. If STAR Labs had been simulating particle acceleration with the wrong specs, it could be catastrophic. 

He found himself running back up to his office, bolt still in hand. Engineers and biologists alike starred as he hurried past them, but Cisco didn’t stop. 

Thankfully, Cisco’s office was empty when he reached it. Hartley had left, probably looking for someone else to annoy. 

He sat in his chair and brought up the simulation. Spent the next half hour working through the code, adjusting the virtual bolts to the correct shape. 

Eventually, the updated simulation was ready for testing. Cisco’s hand hovered over the enter key for nearly a full minute. 

Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. After all, how could Doctor Wells have missed something? This project was his life’s work. He wouldn’t be careless about something as small as bolts. 

Well. Only one way to find out. 

Cisco pressed the key. 

Virtual particles slammed into each other, again and again and again. For a moment, Cisco felt the anxiety in his chest loosen. But then the virtual beams bucked, and the virtual wiring sparked, and a virtual wave of destructive particles blew a hole in the roof of virtual STAR Labs and spilled into a virtual sky. 


	2. Chapter 2

For a long moment, Cisco just stared at the screen. Then he ran the simulation again. And again.

The result never changed.

If he hadn’t caught this, the particle accelerator would have exploded. 

Cisco put his head in his hands, ran his fingers slowly through his long dark hair. Holy shit, that would have been bad. Who knows what would have happened if all that energy was released into Central City? 

Thank fucking God he’d caught it.

He closed out of the program. He needed to tell Doctor Wells, and tell him now. 

He twisted the edge of his t-shirt in his fingers. This conversation was going to suck. 

Cisco knew that Doctor Wells wasn't the type to kill the messenger, but this was a deeply shitty message. STAR Labs was essentially back to square one. A mistake like this could bring the whole project into question, would mean they’d have to spend another year at least combing through blueprints and replacing faulty parts. Not to mention, financial backers would probably be pissed. Cisco didn’t really have a good grasp on the whole ‘scientific funding’ situation, but he couldn’t imagine reworking an entire project would be great money-wise. Hell, this was the kind of shit that could lead to lawsuits.

Worst of all, Doctor Wells would be depressed. His dream, delayed. 

Cisco completely got it, he felt a sort of crushing disappointment himself. He’d been looking forward to seeing this accelerator turn on since before he’d even started this job. Since he’d first seen Doctor Harrison Wells on a YouTube TED Talk, waxing poetic about all the ways he planned to change the world.

But Cisco’s disappointment was sharply tempered with relief. Fuck, what if he hadn’t caught this? How many people would have died? Changing the world _that_ way would have been...not great. 

Cisco stood, combed his long hair through his hands, tried to make it sit smoothly. He found a discarded blazer on the back of a chair, put it on over his t-shirt. One of the pockets was a bit sticky; there were a few half eaten Twizzlers inside of it. But he guessed it would have to do. 

He tried to catch his reflection in the glass office wall. He looked presentable enough.

Who was he kidding, no one would ever look presentable enough to present news like this. _‘Hey Doctor Wells, your lifelong dream almost blew up the city, and now everything’s getting pushed back for who knows how long.’_

Cisco steadied his breathing, built up his courage, and started the long walk towards Doctor Wells’ office. 

As he walked, Cisco turned the offending bolt over and over in his hands, smooth metal rolling over his fingertips. He kept running through what he would say, what he would do. 

He was so focused, he ran directly into Caitlin, causing her to nearly spill a sample tray.

“Cisco!”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry. You good?”

“Well, nothing’s broken.”

Cisco just nodded, looking beyond her. Caitlin’s eyebrows had been furrowed in irritation, but they eased as she caught sight of the look on his face. 

“What’s wrong?”

He dropped his eyes to the bolt in his hand.

“Hey, Cisco, what is it?”

“I just...” he dragged his gaze up to meet her eyes. “I just need to talk to Doctor Wells.”

She nodded. “He’s still in his office.”

Cisco nodded again, continued to walk. 

“But Cisco!”

He turned back for a moment. Caitlin looked concerned. 

“Come find me, afterward. We can talk about whatever it is.”

He found himself almost smiling. “Okay,” he managed. 

“Okay,” she repeated. She turned and went on her way. 

Cisco breathed out low. It was going to be okay. Telling Doctor Wells would be hard, but they were a family. They’d work it out. This wasn’t the end, after all. Just a delay. They could still build their dream. 

Eventually, he reached Doctor Wells’ office. The door was open, as it always was. Doctor Wells was standing over a blueprint of a communications system. Cisco recognized it as one of his own designs. 

He knocked lightly on the doorframe. “Doctor Wells?”

Wells looked up, his eyes warm and intelligent behind his glasses. “Ah, Mr. Ramon! I was just examining your ingenious little comms system. I was thinking maybe we could rush out a prototype, have it ready for opening day. The engineers could use it to talk to each other from different control rooms. What do you think?”

Cisco gulped. “That sounds great Doctor Wells. But I -”

“Excellent.” Doctor Wells continued as if Cisco hadn’t spoken. “I know you are more than up to the task of finishing this in time-”

“But-”

“And I’m excited to see how this develops as you build it, you always improve on your designs as you work-”

“Doctor Wells-”

“And of course, though I’ll be busy in the coming weeks, I’d be more than happy to track your progress, lend a hand-”

“I need to talk to you!” The words exploded from Cisco’s mouth, too loud, too sharp.

Doctor Wells paused, looked intrigued. “Oh? What about?”

Cisco shifted uneasily. He had no idea how to begin this conversation. 

Wells moved towards him, concerned. “Are you alright, Cisco?”

He took a deep breath.

“Have you ever heard of the Hyatt walkway collapse?” Cisco winced at himself. Starting off on a tangent was probably not great.

Doctor Wells looked surprised. “I can’t say that I have.”

“It’s - it’s a cautionary tale they teach in engineering school. Back in the 80’s this hotel was being built, and the architect wanted these big indoor walkways. The engineers came up with designs for it. But during construction, there were some minor changes. Not only was there double the force intended on the bolts, but they ended up being located on a welded joint.”

Doctor Wells was looking at him patiently, amused but impatient. Cisco knew he was stalling. Putting off the bad news. 

“And so eventually, the entire walkway collapsed, and lots of people died. It was one of the deadliest accidents in US history. This one tiny little change ended up leading to a huge disaster.”

Doctor Wells looked at him, eyes too sharp. 

“Cisco, what is this about?”

He took a deep breath, and opened his palm. The offending bolt sat dark against his skin. 

“It’s about this.”

Something in Doctor Wells' expression changed. Stilled. He quietly went to his door, pushed it shut.

Cisco barely noticed. “I was in the accelerator, and I noticed that the bolts were not the same as the ones in the simulation you told us to evaluate. So I updated the simulation. I don’t know how this happened, Doctor Wells, but the bolts aren’t strong enough. Which means the structure of the accelerator isn’t strong enough. If we turn it on, it will collapse, explode. Spill radiation and dark matter and who knows what else all over Central City.”

Doctor Wells hadn’t said anything yet. Cisco knew he must be taking it in. Must be internally freaking out, the way Cisco had been since he first noticed the bolt was slightly too thin.

“I’m not saying there’s a flaw in your design, Doctor Wells. Maybe there was some miscommunication between the engineers and the building teams. And I know this’ll mean delays. I wish we’d caught it earlier. But like...at least we caught it.”

Cisco trailed off. Silence fell over the room, heavy and oppressive. Cisco wanted to keep talking, fill that silence up. But Doctor Wells’ eyes were cold, growing colder, colder than Cisco had ever seen them. Oh God, he was pissed. Cisco dropped his eyes, stared at the floor. 

Finally, Wells spoke.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Ramon. But I guarantee that the accelerator’s structure is sound. It will not explode.”

Cisco snapped his eyes back up.

“But it will! It absolutely will! I ran the simulation, if we don’t fix this-”

“You know that all final design approval falls to me, yes? You know that I’m down there with the build team, every day. You know, from personal experience, that I work closely with every engineer in the building. So if there was a problem with the design, I would have caught it. So there is no problem with the design. You've made a miscalculation.”

Doctor Wells was always so open to discussion, to feedback, to criticism. It had never even occurred to Cisco that Wells wouldn’t believe him. 

Oh God, Wells didn’t believe him. 

Cisco’s voice grew desperate. “Doctor Wells, please. It’s a small mistake, but a fatal one. If we don’t fix this now, we could jeopardize the lives of everyone in this city-”

“Are you accusing me of something, Cisco?”

“No! No, not at all! Please, just come with me, I have the simulation running on my computer -”

“Open? Running currently?”

“No, I closed the window, but-” Cisco paused. Why did Doctor Wells care if the simulation was open? Worst that could happen was that Hartley would see it, it’s not like there were any reporters here looking to embarrass the company. 

“Good. Go back to your office, Mr. Ramon. You’ve made a mistake. The design is sound. Re-run the simulations with the specs I gave you.”

“But you aren’t listening, those specs are wrong!”

“Go back to your desk, Mr. Ramon. Forget about this.”

“If we turn this thing on, we could blow a hole in the middle of Central City! People could die! We can’t just risk it!”

Doctor Wells turned to look at Cisco, met his eyes directly. They stared at each other for a long moment. There was some expression on Wells’ face Cisco couldn’t quite identify, an expression that shifted suddenly. As if Doctor Wells had made a decision. 

Doctor Wells looked away.

“Mr. Ramon, you’re fired.”

Cisco stood stock still, the words ringing in his ears.

“I’m...I’m what?”

“Your position at STAR Labs is terminated, effective immediately.”

“But - but wait. You need to listen to me. I’m right. I’m sorry, I know it sucks and we’ll have to redo everything, but I’m right. We can’t turn that thing on, people will get hurt.”

“If you do not leave this office in the next ten seconds, Mr. Ramon, I will call security and have you thrown out.”

Cisco hadn’t even known STAR Labs _had_ security. “Please, you need to check, we need to tell the build team, people need to know about this-”

Doctor Wells’ eyes snapped back to Cisco.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Mr. Ramon.” His voice was a harsh hiss. “If you tell a soul about this, if you breathe one word of any kind of unsubstantiated accusation, I will make sure the only job you ever get in science is teaching it to high school juniors.”

Cisco’s feet were frozen to the ground. “But...Doctor Wells-”

Doctor Wells pressed a button on his desk. A harsh buzz rang through the room. “Requesting security.”

Wells turned his back on Cisco as security stormed into the room. They caught hold of Cisco’s arms, dragged him away. Cisco pleaded, begged, even screamed. Wells didn’t even flinch. 

Cisco found himself staring at the cold expanse of his mentor's back as the door slammed in his face. 


	3. Chapter 3

Cisco paced around his apartment, anxiety charging his limbs. Trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. 

He’d been fired. Fired from his dream job. Because Doctor Wells, his mentor, his personal hero, didn’t trust Cisco’s word. 

And in three and a half weeks, the entirety of Central City would be exposed to potentially deadly radiation. Hell, that was the  _ best  _ case scenario. There was also a chance that the uncontained reaction could eventually spiral into a black hole, destroying the entire solar system. 

None of this felt real.

Cisco’s breaths came quick and heavy. He stopped pacing, bent over, put his hands on his knees. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling hard at the strands. 

Why wouldn’t Doctor Wells believe him? Hadn’t Cisco proved himself? Shown he could be trusted? 

He thought of the expression in Doctor Well’s eyes as he turned his back, and suddenly wanted to cry. 

This was a misunderstanding. This had to be a misunderstanding. He would call Doctor Wells, clear everything up.

Hands shaking, Cisco took his phone out of his jeans pocket. He scrolled through his contacts until he found the number he was looking for. The contact info read ‘Harrison Wells (holy shit!)’.

Doctor Wells gave out his personal number to engineers he liked, engineers he trusted. Cisco had been so thrilled to be added to that exclusive list. It had only been two months ago.

Cisco stood up straight, tried to shake the nervousness out of his limbs. His hands were barely trembling as he pressed ‘call.’

He put the phone to his ear, waited for it to start ringing. Instead…

“The number you have dialed is not in service at this time.”

Cisco threw his phone onto his couch. It bounced off onto the floor. “Fuck.”

What was he going to do?

Caitlin. He needed to tell Caitlin. 

As a biologist, she obviously wasn’t working directly on the particle accelerator. But Caitlin would believe him, and she would tell Ronnie to believe him, and together they’d convince Doctor Wells to believe him. Ronnie had more clout with Doctor Wells than Cisco did, he’d been at the company for like forever. And everybody loved Caitlin. Wells wouldn’t just ignore  _ them. _

He scooped his phone up off the floor and rubbed off a bit of discarded Cheeto dust. Scrolled to Caitlin’s name and dialed her. 

She picked up after two rings. “Hey you!” she said, oddly cheerily. 

“Caitlin, I need to talk to you.”

“Of course you do. Just give me a few seconds-” Cisco could hear her walking quickly, her heels hammering on the steel STAR Labs floor. 

A door closed on the other end of the line. “Okay, I can talk now,” Caitlin said breathlessly. 

“What, are you hiding in the bathroom?”

“Yes, actually. Doctor Wells just called me and Ronnie into his office and told us not to talk to you.”

Cisco’s heart rate spiked. “He what?”

“He said you had some kind of breakdown, started ranting, accusing him of sabotaging the accelerator.” 

Cisco could feel the muscles in his hands spasming again, could feel the shakes he’d banished restarting. “I didn’t accuse him of anything! I just warned him...he must have taken what I said wrong.”

“Cisco, he said you freaked out and had to be escorted from the building by security.”

He stood quickly. “Oh come on!”

“Hartley’s been telling everyone he saw them force you out to your car.”

Cisco started pacing again. “Well yeah, security did kick me out, but it wasn’t because I had a breakdown! Doctor Wells just, I don’t know, kinda reacted shittily when I told him the accelerator would explode!”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “You told him what?”

“The accelerator. It’s going to explode.”

“That’s...that’s impossible.”

He groaned in frustration, his grip on the phone too tight. “It’s not impossible! I found some bolts that aren’t strong enough! The whole structure will fall in on itself!”

Caitlin paused again. “You’re positive?”

“Well none of this would have happened if I wasn’t positive! I ran the simulation four times!”

“I don’t understand. Why did Doctor Wells have you kicked out?”

Cisco shrugged theatrically before remembering that Caitlin couldn’t see him. “I don’t know! Maybe he’s been so overfocused on the project that he doesn’t want to listen to reason. Maybe he just doesn’t believe I’m a good engineer-”

“That can’t be it,” Caitlin cut in, sounding certain. “You’re one of the best engineers at STAR.”

“Well then, I’ve got no frakkin clue. But you need to get him to listen, Cait.”

“Okay,” she said, without hesitation. “How do I do that?”

He paced faster, moving in tight circles around his couch. “My computer. It has the simulation I ran on it. Go to my office, open a file called ‘Holodeck.’ The changes I made to the code reflecting the bolt mistake should still be up. Get Doctor Wells, show him the simulation. Bring Ronnie with you. He likes both of you, he’ll listen to you.”

“Okay, okay I’ll do it.” Her voice was sure, soothing. “We’ll get this straightened out Cisco. You’ll be back with us in no time.”

“I hope so. Fuck, I hope so.”

“It’ll all be okay,” Caitlin promised. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to Ronnie, see if we can get Wells to talk to us before the end of the day. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye, Cait.” After she hung up, Cisco rolled his shoulders, trying to get out the tension. It was gonna be fine. It was gonna be totally fine. He just had to wait for Caitlin and Ronnie to talk to Wells. Sort everything out. 

He went to the kitchen, opened up a bag of Fritos. Turned on Netflix and popped on a random movie. 

He tried to focus on the plot, the characters. But it was all going over his head. He kept getting up to pace, to rummage through his cabinets, to randomly turn his lights off and on. Most of all, he kept his phone in hand, checking the time every few minutes. Few seconds.

The clock moved from 2:00PM to 3:00PM, from 3:00PM to 4:00PM. As the number inched closer and closer to 5:00PM, Cisco’s anxiety grew. The workday would be done soon. When was Caitlin going to call back? When was she going to tell him everything was fine, the Doctor Wells believed him, had forgiven him, would fix the accelerator and take them all out to dinner as an apology? 

5:00PM came and went. Cisco tried not to let himself panic. Okay, working after 5:00PM wasn’t uncommon at STAR Labs. It was typical even; people got sucked into their projects, there was a lot to get done before the accelerator went live. 

Fuck, the accelerator could not go live. Caitlin had to convince him. 

Soon, it was nearly 6:30PM. Cisco had gone through the whole bag of Fritos and was working his way through some plantain chips. He was watching...he had no clue what he was watching. Some show about vampires or something. Finally,  _ finally  _ the phone rang. 

He dropped the chips, scrambled to pick up quickly. “Hello? Caitlin? How’d it go, what happened?”

“Hey Cisco.” Caitlin’s voice was quiet, sounded almost resigned. 

That was not good.

“Caitlin, tell me what happened. Did you find the simulation?”

“Yes, I found it.”

She didn’t say anything else, seemed to be considering her next words. 

But Cisco didn’t have time for patience. “And? Did you show it to Doctor Wells?”

Caitlin sighed. “Cisco, the simulation...it’s didn’t show the particle accelerator exploding.”

A horrible weight settled around Cisco’s stomach. “What do you mean it didn’t show the accelerator exploding?”

“I mean, it showed the experiment proceeding as it’s expected to. Nothing unusual happened.”

“Are you sure?”

“I ran it five times myself, then ran it four more times with Ronnie next to me. Normal every time.”

“But...but how could…” 

“Now, this isn’t the end. Ronnie is going to check the blueprints, double check the bolts, try to see if he can find some inconsistencies to corroborate your findings.”

Cisco sat heavily on the couch. “The simulation is set to auto-save. It should have been there.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Cisco. Do you want me and Ronnie to pop by? Bring over some beer or something?”

His mind was running a mile a minute. He felt like he was going to be physically sick. He didn’t think he’d be great company right now. “No, that um...that’s ok. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

“Okay.” Cisco could practically see the concerned furrow in her eyebrows through the phone. “I promise it will be ok. Even if you don’t get your job back. There are plenty of companies who would love to have you.”

_ The only job you’ll have in the sciences is teaching it to high school juniors. _

Cisco gulped. His breath tasted like bile. He tried to keep it light. “Yeah. Well, you know hopefully. Maybe the particle accelerator will explode and I’ll die of radiation poisoning.” 

The words came out strangled. Caitlin sighed again. “That’s not funny, Cisco.”

He ducked his head. Tried to think of something, anything to say. 

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come over.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

It didn’t sound remotely believable. 

Still, she respected his wishes. “Get some rest. Please try to sleep more than four hours tonight”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight Cisco.”

“Night.” The line cut out. Cisco ran his finger over the edge of the phone. Over and over and over again.

The simulation was gone. How could the simulation be gone? He had everything set to autosave, always had. It should have popped up just as he left it.

Unless it had been deliberately deleted. 

Maybe they’d already started cleaning out his computer, prepping it for another engineer? But no, that made no sense. It’s not like the whole program was gone, just his most recent changes. 

His mind caught suddenly on a smug face and a condescending smile. Hartley. Maybe Hartley had deleted it. He was probably thrilled Cisco was gone; they’d hated each other from pretty much the moment Cisco had walked into STAR Labs. Maybe Hartley was trying to make sure he didn’t get his job back.

But...but that didn’t make sense either. As much as Cisco would love to blame this whole thing on Hartley, Hartley didn’t even know about the updated simulation. He didn’t know about the bolts, didn’t know about the conversation with Doctor Wells, didn’t know about any of it. He wouldn’t know what to delete. 

The only person who knew about the exploding simulation was Doctor Wells. And he couldn’t - he wouldn’t - 

Doctor Wells was the only person who would know to delete it.

_ Are you accusing me of something, Mr. Ramon? _

Oh God.

Cisco suddenly felt Fritos and plantain chips making their way back up his esophagus. He ran to the bathroom, emptied his stomach into the toilet. 

When he was done, he sat on the floor, leaned back against the cold porcelain of the toilet. 

Doctor Wells was the only one who knew enough to delete the simulation. 

Doctor Wells had been so  _ so _ angry when he brought this up.

Angry enough to fire him. Angry enough to call security on him. Angry enough to tell his co-workers not to talk to him ever again. 

A thought clawed at Cisco’s mind. A thought that seemed impossible, seemed ridiculous. But strangely, seemed to fit. 

What if Doctor Wells was hiding the bolts on purpose? What if he was trying to shut Cisco up, get him out of the way, ensure he wouldn’t be believed?

What if Doctor Wells  _ wanted _ the accelerator to explode?


	4. Chapter 4

Cisco wondered, belatedly, whether he’d let this get a bit out of hand. 

He’d spent the first half of the night pacing, wringing his hands, letting possibilities whirr through his mind. 

Why would Doctor Wells want to blow up the accelerator? What reason could he possibly have? Was he trying to make some kind of statement? Trying to make a point to scientific investors or the academic commnity? Did he need quick insurance cash?

Each idea sounded more ridiculous than the last.

As the night wore on Cisco doubted himself, over and over and over again. This was all ridiculous. There was no logical reason for Wells to destroy the project he’d been building for a lifetime.

But then why had he thrown Cisco out, deleted the exploding simulation? Why had he gotten so angry?

None of it made any sense. Wells was a scientist. This particle accelerator would open up scientific understanding never before conceived of. It would - 

At this point, Cisco had an abrupt revelation, turned too quickly in excitement, and tripped over a kitchen chair.

But as he was picking himself off the floor, the idea fully formed in his mind. Again, Doctor Wells was a scientist. So if he wanted the accelerator to explode, he must expect to achieve some scientific result.

So, around 2:30AM, Cisco had pulled his old whiteboard from college out from under his bed, leaned it against the wall, and started doing equations. 

Now the first rays of sun were peeking through his blinds. Cisco’s hair was tangled, his hands were shaking as he wrote from one too many Monster Energy drinks. But he was going to crack this. He was going to figure out what an uncontrolled particle collision would look like, find out why Doctor Wells would take such an enormous risk. 

And once he knew why, Cisco would somehow get in front of Doctor Wells, sit him down carefully, and talk him out of it. 

There was a sudden buzz from the intercom. Cisco flinched, dragged his arm through his last equation. “Oh shit shit shit!”

The intercom buzzed again. “I’m coming okay!” he shouted to no one. 

Cisco eventually got himself to his feet, rushed over to the speaker in the kitchen. He pressed the button quickly. “Hello, anyone still there?”

“Cisco, it’s Caitlin,” the intercom answered. “I have Ronnie with me. We’re coming up.”

“Great! Excellent, I have so much to tell you guys. I’ve been working on this, I’m so close to cracking it, but I’d love your input. I’m going to build a small Cockcroft–Walton generator this morning so I can test out -”

“Cisco?” Caitlin’s polite voice cut in. “Could you tell us this upstairs? It’s kind of cold out here.”

“Oh yeah of course.” 

His finger pressed the buzzer, and he hovered anxiously in the kitchen until he heard the small knock on the door. 

Cisco tore it open, grinning wildly. “I’m close! I think I’ve almost got it.”

Caitlin and Ronnie stood in the doorway, immaculate in highly professional business casual outfits Cisco had never quite mastered, looking confused.

Belatedly, Cisco realized he probably should have had a different conversation opener. “I mean, come in, obviously. Can I make you coffee?”

He ushered them inside quickly, shutting the door behind them, rushing over to the fridge.

“It’s okay, we don’t need coff-”

Cisco was already spooning grounds into a filter. 

“So I got to thinking, last night, what if Doctor Wells is trying to create some kind of specific result with an uncontrolled particle accelerator explosion? There are a lot of different theories about what would happen if you collided particles together not just one at a time, but all at once. You can back me up on this Ronnie, I know you’ve studied the potential of tachyons-”

“Cisco-”

“And so I’ve been thinking about what possible result Doctor Wells could be trying to create. The most obvious risk is that we’d open a black hole, and I know Doctor Wells is not afraid to get all Doc Brown weird with it. But I am about 87% certain he doesn’t want to intentionally suck us into a black hole, because how could we study a black hole’s effects if we were all dead from said black hole?”

“Cisco-”

“My best guess right now is he wants to create large amounts of dark matter, and once I figure out why I can figure out how to do it in a safe way, and convince him that blowing up the accelerator is a bad idea. Did I tell you I think he wants to blow up the accelerator on purpose, I probably should have started with that-”

“Cisco!”

He blinked. 

Caitlin was standing in right front of him, her eyes huge with concern. Ronnie was by the sink, pouring a glass of water. A few moments later, the glass was in Cisco’s hands. 

“Let’s all sit down, okay?” Ronnie’s voice was exceedingly gentle, like he was trying to calm a skittish animal. 

All at once, it occurred to Cisco how he must look. Rambling a mile a minute, forearms smeared with whiteboard dust, hair tangled with yesterday’s clothes on. 

He gulped. 

“Yeah. Yeah okay. Sitting would be good.”

They made their way over to what passed for his living room. Cisco sat slowly, tried his best to look normal. 

Caitlin’s voice was soft and worried when she finally spoke. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

He dropped his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by the concern in Caitlin's gaze. Staring at his lap, he shook his head. “I umm, I kind of got caught up in...everything.”

Cisco could practically feel Caitlin nodding in sympathy. “Okay. Did you eat dinner?”

“I had some Monster.”

“Did you have anything besides energy drinks? Some water maybe?”

He shook his head again. Caitlin sighed. “Do you have eggs?”

Cisco nodded this time. Ronnie headed back toward the kitchen side of the room, started rooting around in Cisco’s fridge.

Caitlin put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder. “Promise me that you’ll try to get some sleep today? It’ll make you feel better.”

“But I’m so close, and I need to figure out what’s going on so I can convince Doctor-”

“I promise we will help you figure this all out. But you have to take care of yourself. You told me yourself that your work gets shaky on all-nighters.”

He had told her that, about a month ago. He and Ronnie had been at STAR past 10PM working on the backup generator for the pipeline, while Caitlin chided them both for being workaholics. And Cisco had promised her that he wouldn’t stay at STAR too late, because he got shaky without sleep. And then Cisco started to tell them about nearly failing a dumb humanties course requirement during college because he’d stayed up building a PEM fuel cell. And then Doctor Wells had come in, and he’d laughed with them, his eyes warm and kind-

Cisco felt a soft hand over his own suddenly, snapping him out of the memory. Caitlin was sitting close, rubbing his shoulders. 

And suddenly Cisco felt overwhelmed. He hadn't realized how close he was teetering to the edge of panic. “I have to fix this. I have to, he's going to hurt people if he does this. I have to make him listen to me. I-”

Caitlin brought him into a hug. “It’s okay. I promise it’s all okay. We’ll help you, alright? We already have a plan. It’s all going to be okay.”

Cisco sagged in relief, sinking into the hug. Let himself take the simple comfort.

After a few moments, he pulled away. Ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. “I um, I promise I’m alright. And I’ll get some sleep today.”

“Good,” Caitlin said, voice full of relief. “Good.”

“You should eat these before we go,” Ronnie’s voice called from the kitchen. He was spooning scrambled eggs onto a plate. “You want any hot sauce?”

“Umm, yeah. The one with the yellow label, second from the end?”

Ronnie grabbed the bottle from the shelf over the stove and walked over. The plate of eggs clanked onto the coffee table. 

“Thank you,” Cisco said a bit sheepishly. He felt like some kid, being taken care of.

But Ronnie was smiling, shrugging it off. “No worries, man.”

Cisco liberally applied hot sauce to his eggs and started eating. 

“So, Ronnie had an idea last night that might help us out.” Caitlin sounded hopeful, and Cisco’s ears perked up.

“Yeah?” he said, mouth full of egg.

“I’m going to take a look at the original schematics, the ones before construction started three years ago,” Ronnie replied. “I remember Wells was very over particular about the dimensions of every little detail when we were drawing those up. There was likely some miscommunication between the design and build teams. I’ll set a meeting, show him the schematics, compare with the specs of your bolt, and we’ll get this cleared up.”

Cisco looked up skeptically. “When I tried to talk to him about it, he went from 0 to 100 in anger. Like I barely blinked and I was being muscled out of his office by security randos. Plus, if he deleted my simulation, he’s trying to hide something. Like I said before, I’m almost certain he wants the accelerator to explode.”

Caitlin looked a bit exasperated. “Cisco, come on. This is Doctor Wells. I’ve worked with him for years. He’s not some mad scientist, he’s on track for the Nobel.”

“Yeah but I’m telling you, I think he wants to push this project further, get a more intense result. I just need some more time to figure out the math so I can know why.”

“I don’t doubt your math skills Cisco,” Ronnie began. “But the simplest explanation is the most likely one, after all. And the simplest explanation here is that there was some miscommunication between teams and Wells overacted and took it out on you.”

Cisco shook his head. “I’m telling you, that doesn’t account for everything. What about the deleted simulation on my computer?”

“Well, think about it logically,” Ronnie said. “What’s more likely? That Wells is secretly planning a highly risky experiment that could kill everyone in the city, or that you built a slightly faulty program?”

“You saying I made a faulty program? Me? Cisco Ramon? The best programmer in these United States?”

“Cisco, you’re the best programer I’ve ever met, but we’re all human. We all make mistakes.”

_Mistakes?_ Cisco barely covered his scoff. Ronnie rolled his eyes but pressed on.

“I’m telling you Cisco, let me try this. He’s had time to cool off, and he might be more receptive to hearing the news if multiple engineers have approached him.”

Cisco was still skeptical. “If you go in there, you have to go in with solid proof. Like rock solid. Get the schematics, bring up a bunch of bolts to his office, have video of the bolts in the vault so he knows for certain that’s where you got them, everything. I don’t want you to get fired too.”

Ronnie smiled, a little sadly. “I promise, I won’t get fired.”

“We’ll sort all this out,” Caitlin jumped in. “You know Wells is reasonable. You’ll be back with us in no time.”

Cisco nodded slowly and tried to feel certain. “Okay. Okay.”

* * *

  
  


After Caitlin and Ronnie left, Cisco dragged himself to bed and tried to quiet his mind. They were probably right. He’d probably gotten carried away, made a lot out of nothing. 

But that simulation program was solid. He _knew_ that simulation program was solid. 

And then his mind would spin out into possibilities, into the scientific potential Doctor Wells might see in breaking open the sky. 

No. No Caitlin and Ronnie were right. Doctor Wells would never do something like that. 

_But maybe-_

His thoughts turned and turned in seemingly endless circles. But eventually tiredness won out, and his mind spun down into sleep. 

* * *

Cisco was sharply awoken a few hours later by a sharp buzzing near his ear. He groaned and grabbed his phone. 

Dante had called. And then texted.

_Mama wants you to bring over dried cranberries from that fancy store near your apartment for Thursday._

Shiiiiit, it was like two days until Thanksgiving. Mama was going to be expecting Cisco to come home, and he’d have to go and act normal and do his best to pretend he didn’t get fired. Because if his parents knew, he’d probably get a big lecture about applying himself and work ethic and how he never knew how to commit to anything. 

He was getting irritated just thinking about it. They’d absolutely think he was just being lazy or whatever. It’s not like he could explain any of this to them. The accelerator or the bolt problem or his theories about Doctor Wells. None of them had a head for science. Like, at all. He remembered once he’d jokingly asked Caitlin to do a DNA test, see if they were actually related. Caitlin had laughed and told him that the biology department at STAR Labs wasn’t 23&Me.

Something caught in Cisco’s brain. He sat bolt upright in bed, exhaustion vanished. 

The biology department. 

Why did STAR Labs have a biology department?

He remembered thinking it was weird when he first got hired. Most labs had separate divisions, and bioengineering was a common field. But most labs were not working on something as incredibly specific as particle acceleration. 

Cisco’s shitty old idiot roommate Seb from college, who _somehow_ had gotten a job with CERN, had said it was kind of bizarre when Cisco had mentioned it. They occasionally brought biologists in to consult, but they didn’t have a separate department right next to the particle accelerator. And like, yes the dude was clearly trying to brag about working at CERN, but he did have a point.

Caitlin was pretty open book about her projects. Occasionally she had one she couldn’t talk about, but usually she was more than happy to share what she was working on. She was studying the genome, gene therapies. Nothing related directly to particle acceleration. 

So why was she working on top of a particle accelerator?

Cisco flipped open his laptop. His old college had somehow never deactivated his log-in credentials, maybe because Cisco had left suddenly in the middle of a semester when Harrison Wells told him a degree would only dampen his potential.

Fuck that was a painful memory now. 

Regardless, his login credentials falling through the cracks meant he had access to every scientific journal he’d ever need. And he had a nice university search engine to sort through them. It should be easy enough to figure out where exactly gene therapy and particle acceleration met. 

Cisco had to toy with the search terms a little. His old college had subscribed to an absolutely ridiculous amount of journals apparently. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, a constant stream of journal articles that didn’t _quite_ match what he was looking for.

But then he saw it. 

_Theoretical Effects of Dark Matter on the Human Genome (2005)_

_By: John Taylor_

_Roderic Klein_

_Harrison Wells_


	5. Chapter 5

It was one of the weirdest things Cisco had ever read. 

Now admittedly biology was not his field. But this was like some weird 70’s Dharma Initiative shit. The paper talked about extra-sensory perception and parapsychology and human macroscopic quantum tunneling. It was just _completely_ out there. 

If he didn’t know better, Cisco would think this was an in-universe piece of fan writing for X-Men. 

Cisco was honestly kinda shocked that Doctor Wells had put his name on this. And he was even more surprised that he’d never heard of this before. Wells was one of the most famous scientists in the world, his work constantly praised and scrutinized. When a respected scientist put his name on a piece like this....people tended to talk about it. 

A quick scan of the notes on the bottom of the page provided at least some explanation on that. Cisco mumbled the words to himself as he read. “This is a scan of the original printed journal obtained for MIT Library Research Group. Dr. Harrison Wells requested his name be removed from subsequent printed and online editions of this journal.”

Thank Jesus for obsessive completionist college librarians, or Cisco would never have found this thing. 

To be honest, Cisco had no idea what to make of it. Why would Doctor Wells publish something so completely bizarre, only to have his name taken off?

He decided to Google the other scientists on the paper. Maybe he’d be able to track down some email addresses, talk to them.

But after a few minutes, it became clear that it was a dead end. A literal dead end, the other two scientists on the paper were dead. Roderic Klein had been killed in a hit and run while on his bike, and John Taylor had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 28. 

John Taylor did have a few more papers listed though. 

Cisco became more and more intrigued as he clicked through them. It was all the same kind of stuff, ESP and telekinesis and quackery. But like...his experiments on mice were actually kind of interesting. And obviously you never wanted to draw too many conclusions from one study performed by one person, but Taylor had exposed a rat to a dark matter beam and then the rat was able to solve mazes _before_ being taught how to. That was honestly kind of dope. 

Even more interesting, the papers were all sponsored by STAR Labs. The first one published in 2002, the last in 2005.

He leaned back in his chair, slowly twirling a lock of hair around a finger. It was hard to put together what this all meant. 

Clearly, STAR had done some unusual paranormal-ish research in the past. It had obviously not been a huge department, and ceased operations nearly a decade ago, but it had been there. 

And it had stopped. Probably because A. investors didn’t take labs who did this kind of thing seriously and B. it was pretty much impossible to scale this kind of research up. After all, no ethics board in the world would let you do tests like that on live human subjects. 

Oh. 

_Oh._

_FUCK._

The phone buzzed. Cisco jumped. 

He flipped it over to look at the screen. 

“Ugh, fuck off Dante!”

Cisco threw the phone onto the bed, muffling the buzzes. 

He tried to refocus on his laptop, but his phone just kept on buzzing. Clearly Dante was going to stay on the line as long as it took Cisco to pick up, because Dante was the world’s most irritating older brother. 

Cisco let out a long breath. Okay, he could do this, get the call over with. He just had to calm down, quickly get through the conversation without revealing he’d been fired and that his mentor/idol was maybe planning to use the entire city population as guinea pigs. 

He felt panic clawing at his chest and did his best to wrestle it down. 

The phone was still buzzing. Cisco’s thumb hovered the answer button. 

Natural. He just had to sound natural. Easy peasy. 

Cisco picked up, put on his sunniest voice. “Hey hey hey broki, que es la que?”

There was a long, long pause. Then…“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

He cringed. Yeah okay, that opener had maybe not been his best work. “Nothing, forget about it, what’s up?”

Dante snorted. “Broki? Are we trying on new nicknames now? Because I can think of a few for you, mija-”

“Don’t call me that. Just shut up, oh my god. What do you want?”

“You never answered my text about the cranberries. Mama wants to know if you can get them or not. Martha Stewart was on the Today Show this morning, and now she has all these ideas about scones for a Thanksgiving breakfast thing.”

“Breakfast? What time does she want me to come by?”

“I mean, I think she thought you were going to come by the night before and spend the night. You know, since you’re actually in town this year.”

God he didn’t have time for this. What, he was supposed to spend two entire days of his very limited ‘convince Doctor Wells not to do the worst experiment ever’ time pretending to smile at his parents while Dante bragged about his latest piano gig?

“Cisco, ¿me estás escuchando?”

He only had three and a half weeks! How was he supposed to get in front of Doctor Wells? He wasn’t even allowed on STAR premises. God, this was all too much-

“Hey! I can hear you breathing into the phone, I know you’re still there!”

Cisco tore himself out of his thoughts and tried to reenter the conversation smoothly. “Si. Si claro.”

“Si claro what?”

Well shit, Dante had noticed he had no clue what they were talking about. “I can uh - I can bring the cranberries, that’s not a problem.”

Dante paused again. “Ok, for real, what is up with you?”

“Nothing!”

“Did you get dumped again?”

“No, everything is fine, just drop it.”

“You know I can teach you how to be better at dating. Because face it hermano, you have no idea how to talk to women.”

“Dante, solo cállate, ok?”

“No seas tan serio, if you’d just loosen up a bit maybe you’d actually do well with girls.”

“Dante-”

“I mean, Melinda used to say you were cute back when we were together, you’ve got a certain appeal I guess.”

“Dante, I swear to god-”

“There’s someone for everyone. I’m sure we can find some tragic nerd for you, mija. Oh, oh wait hang on Cisco-”

“I got fired, okay!” Cisco screamed the words into the phone. 

For a half second, it felt good. Felt good to actually say what it happened, felt good to stop pretending, to be honest about what was going on. Felt good to finally shut Dante up. 

And then Dante cleared his throat quietly. “I um, I was just about to tell you that Mama came into the room.”

Oh no. “Dante, I’m not on speaker am I?”

“Uh-”

Cisco could hear his mother in the background, asking Dante to give her the phone.

Oh god. 

“Cisco, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think-”

“Just give it to her, it’s fine.”

He heard the phone shifting hands. Had no time to prepare himself for the coming anger tidal wave.

“¿Te despidieron? ¿Eso es lo que estoy oyendo?”

His mother’s voice was furious. Cisco could practically see her narrowed angry eyes glaring down at him. He gulped.

“Mama-”

“¿Cómo sucedió esto? ¿Qué has hecho?”

“¡Yo no hice nada! It’s not my fault mama!”

“Well then, what happened?”

“It was just - I - it was a misunderstanding.” That was putting it _a bit_ lighty. Getting fired by your boss for trying to prevent him from genetically mutating everyone in the city was a little more than a misunderstanding.

Mama didn’t sound like she was buying it. “A misunderstanding?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes. Not ‘yeah,’ yes.”

Cisco rolled his eyes. “Yessss.”

“Don’t take that tone with me Francisco!”

He tried to calm down. “Okay. Yes, yes, it was a misunderstanding with Doctor Wells.”

“Well then. Solo vas a tener que ir y pedirle que te devuelva el trabajo.”

His mouth dropped open.

“Mama, no. No puedo, no puedo hacerlo.”

“Sí, sí que puedes.”

“Mama, they fired me, I can’t just walk in there and ask them to unfire me!”

“So you’ll let all that education we helped pay for go to waste? The education you didn’t even bother to finish? No deberías haber dejado la universidad. Aún no entiendo por qué ni siquiera terminaste el semestre.”

Godamnit, he could not rehash this old argument again. “It was STAR Labs! Doctor Wells picked me personally, fue una oportunidad increíble!”

“And what did that lead to, Francisco? You have no job, no degree. Will they give you a recommendation?”

Well, when she put it like that, he sounded kind of screwed. “Mama-”

“I thought not. So, you will walk back in there, apologize for whatever you did, and get your job back. ¿Entendido?”

“Mama-”

_“¿Entendido?”_

Cisco gulped again. “Entiendo. I’ll give it a shot.”

“Good. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow night. And do not forget those cranberries.”

He sighed, then immediately worried his mother had heard the sigh. He talked quickly to cover it. “Yes Mama, I’ll bring them over. Te quiero.”

“Hablaremos más tarde.” And then Cisco heard the phone shifting again, heard the distant sharp steps of his mother’s heels on hardwood floors. Walking away angry. 

That could have gone better.

Dante was pouring apologies into the phone. “I am so so sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that, I’m sure she’ll calm down before tomorrow. I’m so sorry-”

“It’s fine,” Cisco said tiredly. It really _wasn’t_ fine, obviously, but he didn’t have the energy to argue it. “She had to find out sometime, right?”

“Cisco-”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, he hung up the phone and threw it back on the bed before Dante could say another word. 

* * *

He tried to get back into his scientific groove. Started working through some equations, seeing if he could find a way to charge someone with dark matter in a safe way.

Though to be honest, if Doctor Wells really did want to test this on humans, there was no way it would ever be safe.

He put on some music, tried to just chill out and let the math come to him. Quietly sang along with Kendrick as he worked through it. 

_“I got my drink, I got my music, I would share it but today I'm-”_

The whiteboard marker suddenly went dry in the middle of a burst of inspiration. As he scrambled for a new one, he could feel the idea slipping away.

“Damnit!” he said, throwing the offending marker down. It bounced off the floor and skittered away. 

This was pointless. This was a years long project that he’d have to complete in a matter of weeks. And even if he figured out a relatively safe way to do this, there was no guarantee Doctor Wells would listen to him. 

Maybe Mama had a point. Maybe he should just go down there and demand to talk to Doctor Wells now. 

He could say he understood, could offer to help. And he wouldn’t even be lying, he did understand and he did want to help! Those papers were weird yes, but if any of it really worked it would be _seriously_ cool. Hell, he’d even offer himself up as a human test subject. Best case scenario, he’d get some kind of superpowers. Worst case, he’d explode and thus never have to go to Ramon family Thanksgiving again.

Yeah. Yeah this could work. It was mid-afternoon, Ronnie had probably already talked to Doctor Wells. He’d have some backup. And once Doctor Wells knew Cisco was on board for doing this _safely_ , without blowing a hole in the city, Wells would have no reason to be mad. 

Yeah. Yeah this was a good idea. This absolutely was not a bad idea, it wasn’t. This could work. 

Cisco threw on some sneakers and a coat, grabbed his bus pass, and headed for the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I couldn't help myself, the song Cisco is singing along to is "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe."


	6. Chapter 6

It occurred to Cisco as he was walking across the parking lot toward the giant STAR labs rotunda that he should probably have some sort of plan.

This wasn’t really the moment for a “Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” attitude. The stakes were fairly high, he should take some time to think this through. 

His steps stuttered. He looked back towards the bus stop. Maybe he should just go home, wait for a better plan to come to him. 

But then again, there was no _time_ for a better plan. It would take much too long to come up with a fully baked proposal for ‘safe’ dark matter human testing. And yes, maybe he wasn’t thinking _entirely_ clearly due to exhaustion and panic and overconsumption of energy drinks. But the sooner he was able to get through to Doctor Wells and get him to reverse course on the particle accelerator, the better. 

Doctor Wells was not an unreasonable man. Maybe he’d gone just a little bit mad scientist, but Caitlin was right. Wells knew how to listen to reason.

So yeah. Fuck it. He’ll do it live.

So he put his hoodie up, slipped on a pair of scratched sunglasses he had in his pocket, and started for the entrance. He took a deep breath, looked up at the intimidating glass entry way. “Leeroy Jenkins,” he muttered to himself. 

Cisco pushed the door and stepped inside. 

In hindsight, he should have known that sunglasses and a hoodie would only fool security for like two seconds. And he should have known that someone who’d been kicked out by security just yesterday would probably be listed as a return risk. 

He had barely made it in the door before some big beefy Captain America type was asking for his credentials. And as Cisco stuttered through an explanation, he suddenly found himself being restrained by the Captain American type, pushed roughly onto the STAR Labs floor.

So Cisco decided to do the only thing he could. 

Cause a huge scene.

“Hey!” he started screaming, only slightly muffled by floor tiles. “Hey, you can’t do this to me! I’m a former engineer, just trying to get my stuff! Hey crewcut, stop manhandling me!”

He struggled and kicked and screamed, and it was getting the desired result, getting a lot of people to focus on him. People were turning to stare, stop in the middle of their bustling workday to get a look at what was happening. Maybe if he made a big enough deal, they’d make Doctor Wells come down to deal with him. 

“You can’t make me leave! I’m staying here until I see Doctor Wells!”

Yeah, this non-plan could work out decent after all, Cisco thought as he elbowed Captain America in the shin.

And then, as the security team twisted him around to force his hands behind his back, Cisco caught sight of the very last person he wanted to see. 

Hartley Rathaway was standing on the glass and steel stairway, grinning like an idiot.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled, walking down the steps slowly. “What do we have here? Can it be disgraced former STAR Labs underling Francisco Ramon?”

Okay maybe this plan hadn’t been so great.

“I just want to talk to Doctor Wel-”

“Oh, you think you, a random person off the street, have the right to just waltz in here and talk to one of the world’s most foremost scientists?”

Jesus he was really rubbing it in.

But then again, Hartley was marginally better than no one. He’d at least be able to understand what Cisco was trying to tell him, even if he’d be the world’s biggest asshole about it.

“Hartley, you have to listen to me. There’s something wrong with the accelerator, it’s going to explode.”

Hartley scoffed, but Cisco barreled forward anyway.

“You need to talk to Doctor Wells, tell him there’s safer ways to experiment with dark matter. Tell him-”

“You really think you have the right to order me around? You’re being put in zip-tie handcuffs right now!”

Oh, well what do you know, Captain American was zip-tying Cisco’s hands together. That was probably not a good sign.

But that didn’t matter right now. “Hartley, please! You need to tell him to stop the launch, this can be done safely!”

“First of all, I know the accelerator will launch safely. Because we just did a full safety sweep in response to concerns this morning, and the accelerator passed with flying colors. Secondly, all I’m going to tell Doctor Wells,” Hartley said slowly, “Is that you came crawling back here, like a sad little dog, begging to speak with him.”

“Oh Jesus Christ, you can’t even stop being a dick long enough to listen to me tell you that Doctor Wells is going to blow a hole in the city? You’re that dedicated to being a human turd?”

“Gentlemen,” Hartley said, addressing the security team. “As a senior STAR Labs engineer, I think maybe this warrants a call to CCPD.”

Well fuck. “Hartley, come on, I-”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” a voice from above called. Cisco looked up, and saw Ronnie barreling down the stairs. 

Harley seemed annoyed. “I have this handled Doctor Raymon-”

“My girlfriend and I will bring him home,” Ronnie addressed the security team, ignoring Hartley completely. “He won’t return to the property. I’m lead engineer. I work directly under Doctor Wells. And I’m telling you there’s no need to call the authorities.”

The security team seemed to accept this. Suddenly Captain America was freeing Cisco’s hands and Caitlin was appearing out of nowhere and Hartley was still sputtering about Ronnie pulling rank. 

And before Cisco knew it, he was being hustled out the door. 

As they walked towards Ronnie’s car, Cisco looked back, up towards Doctor Well’s office window. For a moment, Cisco thought he could see him, staring down disapprovingly. But then he blinked, and the image was gone. 

* * *

The car ride back to Cisco’s apartment was...tense. To say the least. 

Cisco again had the feeling of being a little kid. Ronnie in the driver’s seat, Caitlin in the passenger. It felt like being picked up at the principal’s office after a fight, being driven home by his parents. 

“Why the hell did you come in today?” Ronnie said quietly.

Cisco ran a hand through his hair, stared at passing cars out the window. “I mean, I thought I’d be able to talk to Doctor Wells, I didn’t think security would make it a whole _thing_.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin said, voice full of exasperation. “You got thrown out of the building literally yesterday.”

“I wore a disguise!”

She scoffed. “You wore a hoodie and sunglasses, that’s not a disguise!”

“Look I just wanted to see him! I figured the sooner I could get through to him, the better! Especially now that I know what he’s trying to do.”

Caitlin turned around in her seat. “What he’s trying to do?”

Cisco nodded. “I found some old papers the lab published about dark matter and the genome. About how dark matter alters the genome. There was some really wild stuff in there, ESP, telekinesis, all kinds of bizarre effects. And I think maybe he wants to test these theories out, but likely can’t get, you know, funding or volunteers or anything for such risky research.”

Caitlin looked semi intrigued. Ronnie, however, huffed in exasperation. “Cisco, do you even hear yourself right now? ESP, telekinesis? And come on, obviously Doctor Wells is not trying to dose the city with dark matter.”

“Well do you have any other explanation?”

At this Ronnie sighed. He pulled the car over to the side of the street, put on the emergency flashers. 

“Cisco,” he started, then stopped. Heavy silence filled the car. Cisco couldn’t stand it.

“You have something you want to share with the class, Ronnie?”

Ronnie ran a hand over his face, seemed to brace himself. Then, all in a rush, “Cisco, have you thought maybe you’re making a lot out of nothing?”

Lead dropped into Cisco’s stomach.

Caitlin looked surprised, a bit upset. “Ronnie, honey, I don’t think-”

But Ronnie kept talking. “I think Doctor Wells is right, I haven’t seen anything that indicates the accelerator will explode.”

Anger curled tight around Cisco’s mind. “Glad you have so much faith in me.” His voice was bitter.

Caitlin seemed distressed by this response. “Cisco, of course we have faith in you. Of course we do. Tell him Ronnie.” 

Ronnie did not respond for several moments. Then he turned quickly, facing Cisco in the backseat.

“Do you know what we did at work today, Cisco? We conducted a safety audit of the accelerator. Doctor Wells told us an employee had raised some concerns, and wanted us to be careful. Do you know what we found? _Nothing._ ”

Cisco clenched a fist. “Bullshit you found nothing. Did you check the bolts to see that they fit original specs?”

“Of course we did! The bolts were completely normal!”

Cisco scoffed. “That’s impossible.”

Ronnie withdrew something from his pocket, held it up to the light. Slowly, Cisco took it, turned it over and over in his palm. 

It was a bolt. A sturdy, stable, perfectly to spec bolt. 

The anger dissipated, turning into a low dread. “That’s not - look I saw the bolts yesterday, they were all wrong, nowhere near strong enough to support the structure.”

“You think I didn’t check? I took bolts out from all over the accelerator. Must have looked at over 100. All of them were perfectly fine.”

Cisco gulped. He was silent for several long moments, brain grasping for an explanation. “Maybe he had them changed.”

“Oh come on Cisco!” Ronnie exclaimed. “There are over 100,000 bolts holding the accelerator together. Even with a full team you couldn’t change all of them in one night! How would he have had the time?”

“Well then there has to be some other explanation, because I know what I saw!”

“Cisco,” Caitlin cut in quickly. “Ronnie isn’t saying he doesn’t believe you. Right, honey?”

Ronnie didn’t respond. 

“Right, honey?” Caitlin prodded again, her voice a bit tighter.

Silence sat heavy over the car.

“Look,” Ronnie said finally. “I have seen no actual proof that the accelerator will explode. No disaster simulation, no misshapen bolts, nothing.”

“So you think I’m lying?”

“No,” Ronnie said quickly. “But I know what it’s like. The stress, the late nights. Especially for a project like this.”

The dread was sharper than ever, clawing at Cisco’s mind. “What exactly are you saying?”

Ronnie huffed out a sad little sigh. “Look, Wells said you had a breakdown yesterday. And everything I’ve seen seems to prove him right.”

Caitlin gasped. 

Cisco, incredibly, found himself at a loss for words. 

For a moment, self doubt choked him. What if Ronnie was right, what if he was seeing things, what if this was all in his head? 

No. No. Fuck that.

Cisco knew what he’d seen. He’d done the math, he’d programmed the simulation. He knew he was right. 

Yeah, Ronnie might be a couple years older than him, might have a senior lab position. But that didn’t make him right, didn’t make him an authority. Cisco wasn’t some little kid to be scolded and pitied. He was an engineer. A damn good one. 

He looked Ronnie straight in the eye. “I think I’ve had enough of this conversation. Thanks for the ride, but I’ll make my own way home.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin called. “Cisco wait-”

But Cisco was already sliding out of the car, slamming the door. 

* * *

He walked the rest of the way home, fuming. How could Ronnie just take Doctor Wells’s side? Just take him at his word? He wondered if they’d spent the morning talking about it, was suddenly gifted with a mental image of Ronnie nodding along as Hartley went on about how Cisco _just couldn’t take the pressure._

When he reached his building, he stormed up to his apartment, slammed the door. 

Cisco quickly checked his phone. Caitlin had texted. A lot.

_It wasn’t fair of him to say that._

_He’s just worried about you, but it wasn’t fair at all, and he’s sorry._

_You know we always believe in you._

_Let us come by tonight, I promise he’ll hear you out. We’ll figure out what to do._

_I’m sorry Cisco._

He sighed, a little anger leaving him. This wasn't Caitlin’s fault, but he really was in no mood to clear the air with Ronnie tonight. Quickly, he texted back.

_I need a few days. I’ll talk to you after Thanksgiving?_

Caitlin responded immediately. _That’s perfect, take all the time you need. Please remember I’m here for you._

Caitlin might be there for him, but he had the distinct feeling Ronnie wouldn’t trust him right now.

Which meant he’d lost his main ally in STAR Labs engineering. 

And he still only had three weeks to stop the accelerator from going live. 

Cisco began to pace around the apartment, the panicky feeling of being screwed returning. 

He just needed to think. He needed to find another solution. 

Well okay, this was kind of a conspiracy situation. What would you do in a conspiracy movie?

Inspiration hit him with a jolt.

He grabbed his phone, googled quickly until he found the number he needed. Pressed it and dialed before he could think twice.

Someone picked up on the third ring.

“Hello, Central City Picture News tip line. How may I help you?”

Cisco cleared his throat. “Hi, I’m Francisco Ramon. I used to be an engineer at STAR Labs. And I have some important information about the accelerator launch in a few weeks.”


	7. Chapter 7

There was a sharp buzzing in Cisco’s ears. He groaned as he rolled over in bed, putting his pillow over his head. 

Someone was at his door. The first decent night of sleep he’d had since he got fired, and someone had the audacity to ruin it by being at his door. 

He fought his way to his feet, still wrapped in a blanket, and stumbled over to the buzzer, trying to quell his irritation at the person he strongly suspected was at the other end. Not that he didn’t love Caitlin, but Cisco was in no mood to hear excuses for Ronnie yet. Especially not this early. 

Plus there was...something he was supposed to do this morning. He was too asleep to remember what it was right now, but he needed to focus on it.

“Can you come back later?” Cisco mumbled as he hit the answer button. “I’m sleeping.”

“Let me in, mija.”

Oh god. If Cisco didn’t have the stomach for Caitlin right now, he _definitely_ didn’t have the stomach for Dante. 

“Come on, let me in, I’m freezing to death out -”

Cisco took his finger off the receiver, cutting off Dante’s voice mid-sentence. For a hot second, he considered rolling back into bed, letting his brother wait out in the cold. 

But Mama would probably be pissed. Dante was the favorite after all. 

With another groan, he pressed the button to let Dante up. Then he unlocked his door, shuffled over to his couch, and collapsed onto it. 

He shut his eyes. Maybe Dante would get lost on the way up here, or the elevator would break down, and he’d get to keep sleeping. 

Less than a minute later, he heard the door to his apartment click open. 

“Fooo quien se cago?” Dante said in disgust. 

Cisco cracked an eye open. His brother was a blur near the kitchen. “It’s not that bad,” Cisco mumbled. Yes, the remnants from Ronnie’s eggs yesterday were still in a pan in the sink. But it had been at most 26 hours, they barely smelled at all.

“If you say so. You gonna get up or just lay there forever?”

This was maybe in the top five worst ways the day could have possibly started. Cisco rolled back over into the comforting cushions of the couch. “What are you even doing here?”

“Pop lent me the car. Mama wants to make sure we’re back at the house with those cranberries so she can get started with prep.”

“This early?” Cisco moaned into his blankets.

“Cisco, it’s like ten in the morning.”

Which was way too early to start breakfast preparations for Thanksgiving tomorrow morning. This smelled like a pretense. She wanted Cisco back at the house all day. Which meant - 

“Mama wants to talk to me about my job, doesn’t she?”

Cisco opened his eyes again and squinted at Dante accusingly. His brother at least had the grace to look a little guilty. “Yeah, she does.”

Cisco turned and screamed a little into one of the couch cushions. 

“Don’t be like that, Cisco, it'll just be a short talk.”

He huffed, and put the blanket fully over his head. “No it won’t, she’s gonna bring up college again, and the internship at Mercury Labs I skipped, and it’ll be approximately one million years before she stops being upset.”

“Don’t you want to clear the air before Thanksgiving?” Dante’s voice was slightly muffled, but the sound of it still pissed Cisco off.

He tore the blanket off his head in order to glare at Dante intensely. The effect might have been slightly lessened by the bird’s nest of hair falling in front of Cisco’s eyes, but it felt satisfying enough. “If it wasn’t for you, Dante, she wouldn’t even know I got fired! There would be no air to clear!”

Dante rubbed the back of his neck and looked down a bit. He looked genuinely chastened. _Good._

“Mira, I’m really sorry she found out like that, Cisco. I didn’t mean to put you in that position.”

Hmm. That sounded almost like an apology. 

“But I will point out-”

Cisco groaned again and dove back under the blankets. Of course the apology was too good to be true. 

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Dante was saying. Cisco could hear his footsteps walking over to the couch. “I’ll help you talk mama down a bit.”

Cisco felt the weight on the couch shift slightly as Dante sat by his feet. He scowled at Dante around the edge of a cushion. “How exactly?”

Dante shrugged. “I’ll help you pick something extra up for her at Whole Foods. You know like honey mead or french cheese or something. Something bougie.”

He did have a point. If there was anything that melted the heart of Claudia Ramon, it was bougie Whole Foods nonsense. And Dante, mama’s favorite that he was, had a great sense for the particular kind of bougie nonsense she enjoyed. 

“Fine,” Cisco relented. “Just gimme like another hour to sleep.”

“Oh no,” Dante said, grabbing the edge of the blanket by Cisco’s feet. “Mama wants us back at the house soon, levántate y vístete.” He started pulling hard at the blanket. 

Cisco immediately responded by kicking Dante in the stomach. 

“Ow!”

“I’m sleeping!”

“Stop kicking me cabron!”

“Suéltame, asshole!”

The brothers ended up wrestling over the blankets for several minutes. Cisco thought he at least got a few good hits in, but soon enough Dante managed to yank them away. He bundled the blankets in his arms and, breathing a little heavily from the fight, threw them into the bedroom. 

Cisco pouted a bit. “I still think we've got plenty of time to get there.”

“Hey, mama’s pissed off at you, mija, not me. If I were you, I’d want to get there and get it over with as soon as I could.”

Cisco responded by burrowing down into the couch cushions as far as he could go.

“Oh come on! She wants us back by eleven at the latest, we gotta get going.”

Eleven. Something about that time stuck in Cisco’s brain

He’d thought about it, last night. He had wanted to take advantage of unemployment, to sleep in until noon. But he needed to get up because - 

Cisco sat bolt upright.

Because he had a meeting downtown with a reporter at 11:15.

Cisco sprang to his feet. “Dante, Dante, you gotta get out of here.” 

“What, why?”

“Because I have an important meeting in like an hour, and I need to get there like ASAP.”

“What is this, a job interview? Who schedules a job interview the day before Thanksgiving?”

Cisco had rushed into the bathroom, was quickly running a brush through his hair. “It’s not a job interview, it’s just an important meeting.”

“Well where is it? I have the car, I can drop you.”

He grabbed some toothpaste and started brushing. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, mouth full of toothpaste. 

“If you’re in such a rush, don’t you think I should just take you? It’ll be way faster than the bus.”

Cisco spat into the sink. Dante did have a point. It would be nice to have a few extra minutes to get his look together.

“Fine. I’m going to the Central City Picture News Office.”

He exited the bathroom and crossed the hallway. In the 10 seconds it took to get to the bedroom, he saw Dante looking incredibly confused. 

“Why the hell are you going to a meeting at a news office?” Dante called as Cisco shut the bedroom door. 

Cisco scrounged around his hamper, looking for his only blazer. He sniffed it when he found it. Little body spray and it would be good to go. 

“Hey!” came Dante’s voice through the door again. “I asked why are you meeting with someone at Picture News?”

Cisco rolled his eyes as he pulled on a clean shirt. “It’s not really a big deal.”

“But-”

The door buzzer went off again. Cisco was still looking for a good pair of jeans. “Damn it!”

“I got it!” Dante called. He heard his brother talking to someone over the intercom, then leaving the apartment. 

Cisco sprayed down the blazer and threw it on over his Planet Express t-shirt. Not bad. Not his best ensemble, a little rushed maybe. But it would be good enough for this discussion. It's not like he'd be on camera. At least, he didn't think he would. Oh man, what if they put him on camera? 

No, they wouldn't. They'd just told him last night they were interested in hearing what he had to say, and wanted to get him on record. He's pretty sure that didn't mean cameras. 

But he pulled his hair back quickly into a neat little bun, just in case. 

Cisco tried his best to choke down his nerves. He could do this. Someone needed to tell the public about what was about to happen at STAR Labs, and that someone might as well be him.

He heard the front door shut. “I’m back,” Dante yelled. “You going to tell me what this meeting’s about?”

Cisco sighed and left the bedroom. “Who was at the door?”

“Delivery for you.” And sure enough, Dante was putting a giant basket on the counter. 

He went over to get a closer look. When he saw the label, he started grinning. “Oh no way!”

“What?” Dante said, sounding unimpressed.

Cisco tore open the package. “It’s Pricilla’s!”

“What?”

“This candy shop in Austin I found when I went down there to a conference with STAR last fall. They had the best - holy shit yes, this is it!”

“Again, what?”

Cisco held up his prize proudly. “Chocolate covered licorice!”

Dante looked doubtful. “I’m sorry, people make chocolate covered licorice? On purpose?”

Cisco already had a piece of it in his mouth. “I’ve never seen it anywhere else, it’s so good!”

“That’s nasty. And don’t eat that crap with your mouth open.”

“Whatever, not my fault you can’t appreciate the finer things in life.”

Truthfully, Cisco wasn’t just happy about the licorice because he enjoyed a quality piece of candy. There was a very very short list of people who would have known to get this for him. Ronnie had been pretty much the only other engineer at the Austin conference with him, and they’d found the shop together while roaming around the city. They’d had a lot of time to kill, Doctor Wells had a lot of meetings on that trip the engineers weren’t invited to.

It had been fun, and Cisco had loved the licorice. This must be Ronnie’s way of saying sorry.

It must have been difficult to get this sent all the way up to Central City in one night. It was honestly kind of touching. “Was there a note with it?”

“Yeah,” Dante said, holding an envelope up in one hand. 

“Cool, gimme.”

Dante drew his hand back. “Before I give you this, tell me why you’re going to this meeting downtown.”

“It’s nothing, gimme the note.”

“How can it be nothing? Last I checked, they don’t take engineering majors on as reporters.”

“It’s just something to do with STAR. Come on, I want to read it before we go.”

“Who are you meeting?”

"I don't know, some reporter named Madison Biggs or something."

Dante's eyebrows shot up. "Mason Bridge?"

"Yeah I think. Gimme the note."

"Cisco, he's a huge deal. He's the one who broke the scandal about Bishop Ryan last year. What are you talking to him about?"

"Dante-"

"You said this was about STAR. Are you whistleblowing or something? Is this why you got fired?"

“Dante, it’s none of your b-”

The intercom buzzed for the third time that morning.

Cisco looked at Dante accusingly. “Did you forget to tip the delivery guy?”

“He said it was already paid for, you aren’t supposed to tip when it’s already paid for.”

“You’re supposed to tip no matter what Dante!”

The intercom buzzed again, more insistently. Cisco rushed over to answer. 

“Hey, sorry my brother forgot to tip, he’s a huge asshole.”

The was a pause on the other end. “Francisco Ramon?” a deep and serious voice on the other end asked.

Somehow, this didn’t sound like the delivery guy.

“Uh, yeah?”

“This is Detective Joe West with CCPD. I’m here with my partner Detective Chyre. Can we come in?”

Cisco felt like he’d been dunked in ice water. 

“Mr. Ramon.”

Dante was staring at the intercom, eyes huge. Cisco cleared his throat. “Um yeah. Yeah I’ll buzz you up.”

He pressed the button, holding his breath. 

“Cisco, what the hell is going on?” Dante hissed.

“I don’t know, I -” oh god, this was probably about his appearance at STAR Labs yesterday. Hartley had decided to call the cops after all. 

Oh god they were going to charge him with trespassing. He was so so screwed. 

There was a knock at the door. Cisco felt frozen, couldn’t move to answer it. 

Dante went over and opened the door a crack. “Can I help you?”

Cisco couldn’t see the cops through the barely open door, but he could hear them shift on their feet a bit. “Are you Francisco Ramon?”

“I’m Dante Ramon, and before we let you in I would like to know if my brother is being charged with anything. And if you have a warrant.”

One of the unseen cops cleared his throat. “Listen son, your brother isn’t being charged, we just have a few questions for him.”

Suddenly Cisco couldn’t take the pressure. He rushed over to stand by Dante. “Look, if this is about me going to STAR Labs yesterday, tell them I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

From this angle, Cisco could see one of the officers, an older black man. He smiled a bit as Cisco spoke. “Kid, this isn't about STAR Labs. And you're not in any trouble. Another department got an anonymous tip, and found some evidence potentially placing you at the site of an old cold case. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

Dante quirked an eyebrow. “A cold case?”

“Yeah,” the other cop answered. “The disappearance of an Armando Ramon.”

Huh. Well that was...kind of bizarre. Absolutely one million percent out of left field. “I was three when cousin Armando disappeared,” Cisco offered bewilderedly. “And I lived, like, 500 miles away from where he went missing.”

“We just want to talk to you, see if you remember anything. We would prefer to talk to you down at the station, but again, you’re not being charged.”

“Cisco, you don’t have to do this,” Dante said quietly. 

“No, no it’s totally fine. I can, uh, I can go with you guys and answer questions.” 

He turned back to Dante, trying not to feel like he was having some kind of aberrant out of body experience. “Dante, can you lock up? And, uh, call that reporter and tell him I have to reschedule? His number’s on the fridge.”

“Yeah, of course, no problem.”

“Cool. And uh, don’t tell Mama, okay? I don't want her to worry about this. Just say I wouldn’t wake up early or something.”

“Sure. You want me to go with you?”

“No, no that’s fine. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

And with that, Cisco left and followed the police out the door, half eaten forgotten licorice still in one hand.


	8. Chapter 8

Turned out, waiting in a police station mostly involved boredom tempered by severe anxiety. 

They had him move from one bench to another, from one room to another. He spent lots of time staring at walls. Occasionally, an officer would come in and ask questions about what he remembered about when Armando went missing, about where he lived at the time, who he lived with. 

Eventually they told Cisco that the reason they brought him in had to do with an old knife. An anonymous tipster had found it way up in Detroit. It was found on the block where his cousin went missing all those years ago, and apparently was coated in trace amounts of Armando’s blood.

And wrapped around the handle was a long dark hair that, if genetic testing was to be believed, somehow belonged to Cisco himself.

So then more cops came in and asked him if he remembered being kidnapped or seeing someone get stabbed as a child. Cisco answered no, he didn’t remember anything like that, he didn’t even have long hair when he was a little kid. And as the questions kept coming, Cisco’s mind got trapped in an endless circle of _what the actual hell is going on?_

Finally, they told Cisco to wait on a bench in the main hall. Apparently their CSI had some issue with the data from Detroit PD and was re-running it. And apparently, it was going to take forever.

A half hour sitting on that bench soon turned into an hour. The time of his scheduled meeting with Central City Picture News had long since came and gone. Cisco was fidgety and nervous and constantly wondering _am I allowed to leave now?_ But he was too nervous to ask anyone for fear they'd make him sit here longer. 

So he settled for watching the people around him to try to distract himself. One of the cops who brought him in, Detective West, would look over occasionally and give him an encouraging smile. That was a little nice at least. It still didn’t make him feel any less confused. 

Suddenly, a familiar voice cut through the confusion. “This is outrageous, where is my son?”

Oh god.

Cisco turned his head. There, in a sharp floral dress and her best heels, was Mama. Pop was there too, trailing behind her in a slightly rumpled suit, looking like h'd rushed out of work.

He cursed inwardly. _Damn it Dante._

Dante told them. Of course Dante told them, Dante was the biggest mama’s boy of the century. 

Then Mama caught sight of Cisco. She rushed over to heels, heels clacking on the floor. He ducked his head, dreading a lecture.

But suddenly, she was on the bench with him, hugging him close. “It’s okay, mijo, it’s all okay.”

Oh. This hadn't been what he was expecting. 

Logically, Cisco knew he should be embarrassed by this. A grown man getting hugged by his mom in the middle of a police station wasn’t exactly the coolest thing in the world. 

But honestly, after the endless questions, after the sheer confusion of the day, it was strangely a huge relief to see her. Especially since she seemed upset _for_ him, not _at_ him. 

Mama pulled away, brushed a hair behind Cisco’s ear. “Estás bien, mijo?”

Cisco nodded, answering all in Spanish. Yes, there was a good chance some of the cops here spoke it, but after being prodded at and questioned for hours, he wanted to preserve what privacy he could. “Si, si estoy bien, creo. No me han arrestado. Solo me están haciendo preguntas. Preguntas sobre Armando.”

Mama’s brow furrowed. She glanced over at Pop standing over them, looking confused as Cisco felt. 

“Armando?” Pop asked.

Cisco just nodded. “Encontraron un cuchillo viejo, con mi DNA. Y la sangre de Armando."

His parents looked shocked, but Cisco kept speaking, voice rushed, hoping beyond hope that they'd trust his word. 

"No sé de dónde salió. No se como llegó ahí. Te juro que no lo sé, Mama.”

She still looked confused, but nodded. Cisco felt himself breathing a sigh of relief. _She believed him._

It was kind of nice, having family on his side in this moment. 

Mama gave his shoulder a soft, encouraging squeeze. “No te preocupes,” she said quietly. “Todo estará bien.”

And then she stood quickly, and went to speak to the nearest cop in her very best _let me see your manager_ voice.

Pop slid down next to Cisco. “Your brother is swinging by with the car in 15 minutes,” he said quietly. “Since you’re not being charged, I have no doubt your mother will have us out of here by then.”

Sure enough, eight minutes later, Detective West was shaking Cisco’s hand, slipping him a card, telling him to call if he remembered anything else. Two minutes after that, Cisco was signing exit paperwork. And three minutes after that, they were walking into the brisk darkening afternoon air, watching Dante pull the car around. 

* * *

His parents had a lot of questions on the drive back to the house. “How could they think you were there?” Pop started. “You were three years old, it’s not possible.”

Cisco just shrugged. “I don’t know! It was just really weird, they claimed they had DNA evidence from a hair follicle, but how would that even be there?”

Dante was gripping the wheel tight as he drove. He didn’t say anything. 

Mama scoffed. “I swear, these departments are all dysfunctional, just pulling in people to look like they’re doing something.”

“Well, I guess the CSI thought there might be some kind of issue with the test.”

“Like what,” Dante said tightly. “Like it was faked?”

Cisco looked at him strangely. “I don’t know, I never got to talk to the guy.”

“Just absolutely incredible to think the police would ever pull you in for something like this, just absolutely ridiculous. They have no idea what they’re talking about.”

“It’s fine Mama,” Cisco said, rolling his eyes a bit. “It was just a few questions. It was stressful, but it's not like I was in any real danger or anything.”

Dante swerved a bit into the next lane, drawing a loud honk from a passing car. 

“Dante, mira el camino!” Pop admonished. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Dante said distractedly. 

Cisco looked closely at his brother then. Even in the low light, Cisco could see that Dante’s face was a bit grey, his mouth set in a hard thin line. Like he was trying not to be sick.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing, just let me drive.”

Dante was gluing his eyes to the road, but he didn’t seem to really be seeing it.

“For real. What’s going on?”

His brother’s shoulders were tense. “We can talk about it back at the house -”

“Dante,” Mama said. “What is wrong?”

And because Dante was, again, the biggest mama’s boy of the century, he relented. 

“It - it might be nothing. It’s just - that note you got, with the candy this morning?”

Cisco nodded slowly. 

“Well,” Dante continued, voice wobbling just a touch, “I read it.”

* * *

_Dear Cisco,_

_I’m so sorry about the unpleasantness at the office yesterday. Please enjoy this gift as a humble apology._

_If I’ve timed this correctly, and I know I have, you should also be receiving a second surprise from me in a few moments. I hope this surprise is an illuminating experience for you._

_I hope it makes you reflect on the actions you've been taking, the people you’ve been talking to. I hope it gets you thinking about possibilities in your future. After all, you wouldn’t want your future to be anything less than bright. And you want to ensure the futures of Doctors Raymond and Snow stay bright as well. None of us want unpleasant surprises to recur._

_I know you are clever enough to understand what this message means. Just as I have complete faith that you will reflect on your actions of these past few days, and correct your course accordingly. You are incredibly intelligent, Cisco. And I hope, soon enough, you’ll come to see my perspective. After all, we both want the same thing. To bring the world into a shining future._

_With Care,_

_HW_


	9. Chapter 9

Cisco was pacing around his parent’s living room. “Read it again.”

Dante scoffed, “Cisco, it doesn’t matter how many times I read it, it won’t be any less of a threat.”

“No, no Doctor Wells wouldn’t do that. That’s not the kind of person he is. There’s something about it you’re missing. Read it again.”

Dante was sitting quietly on the couch, staring up at Cisco, increasingly irritated. Mama leaned against the doorframe to the kitchen, wringing her hands a bit. And Pop sat in the corner, staring at the floor, his entire body rigid.

Cisco couldn’t stop pacing, didn’t know what to do with all the nervous energy coursing through his body. He wanted nothing more than to turn off the anxious part of his brain, go work on programming or weld something together or mix chemicals that absolutely should not be mixed.

But the note from Doctor Wells was sitting on the coffee table, staring at him. 

There had to be another explanation.

“Are you sure you didn’t miss some other package delivered? Another letter or something?”

“This was all that showed up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Cisco ran a hand through his hair. “I just - Doctor Wells wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Well clearly, he would. So what the hell happened at work?”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Mama asked, face darkening a bit. “What does this have to do with your job?”

Cisco turned away from his family, fixed his gaze outside of the window. “It’s nothing -"

"Does this have to do with why you got fired, mjio?"

He huffed, a bit angrily, trying not to be frustrated with his family. His breath fogged on the window. "It’s not a big deal. Just a misunderstanding. I can handle it.”

Dante’s reflection in the window stood, incredulously. “Cisco, you got fired out of nowhere, this morning you told me you were going to meet with a reporter, and now we get a threatening letter from your old boss. And you expect me to think nothing is going on at work?”

He turned back towards his brother, face flaming in anger. “It’s my problem, just drop it.”

“You were the one who asked me what was wrong in the car!”

“Yeah, and now I don’t want to talk about it, okay!”

“Boys!” Mama’s voice came sharp from the doorframe. “Siéntense, los dos!”

Cisco breathed out. He and Dante were standing less than a foot apart from each other. Cisco’s nails were biting into his palm, he could feel sweat pooling on the back of his neck. 

Dante went back to his spot on the couch. Cisco sat on the edge of the piano bench, far away from his brother as possible.

Why did Dante have to do this now? Bring this up in front of everyone, make it into a whole family _thing._

They weren’t going to understand. 

His mother was staring at him shrewdly, too shrewdly. It was the same look she’d given him half a hundred times when he’d gotten in trouble in class or in the neighborhood or at science camp.

“Francisco,” she said, quiet voice ringing with authority. “Tell me what happened.”

He couldn’t see a way out of it. 

Cisco ducked his head, stared at the gunk stuck between the floorboards. “A few days ago, at work, I was in the particle accelerator STAR Labs is building.”

“I saw that, on the news,” Dante offered. “There’s a bunch of protestors who don’t want it turned on.”

Cisco rolled his eyes. “Oh what, so you heard about it for the first time on the news? I’ve been working on this project for over a year, it’s the best opportunity of my whole life, but you’re only just hearing about it because of the news?”

“Come on, that’s not fair,” Dante snorted.

“Do you not listen to me _at all_ when I call home?”

“You always go off on these wild science tangents, I don’t understand half the shit you’re talking about!”

“Dante,” Mama said, turning sharply to look at her eldest son. “Let your brother continue.”

Well well well. Dante getting chewed out by Mama was a rare sight. Despite everything, Cisco couldn’t help grinning, just a little.

Dante saw the small grin and rolled his eyes. 

Cisco cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was working in the particle accelerator. And I noticed there was a pretty major flaw. And if the flaw wasn’t fixed, it wouldn’t be safe to turn the accelerator on. It could buckle, lead to an uncontrollable chain reaction, and then explode.”

Dante’s face had gone white. Mama’s eyes were widening. Pop sat silently, still as a statue.

“I take it you told your Doctor Wells about this?” Mama questioned.

Cisco nodded. “He got really angry, fired me on the spot.”

Dante ran a hand over the top of his head, across his eyes. 

“And so I figured it was a mistake,” Cisco continued. “I tried to go talk to him again. Tried to get one of the other engineers, Ronnie, to help me prove it. And then that didn’t work, so I called Picture News.”

“And then this morning,” Dante cut in. “Right before you’re supposed to talk to this big-shot reporter, you’re called into the police station.”

Cisco huffed in frustration. “I’m telling you, Doctor Wells wouldn’t do something like that. You’re talking about him planting evidence, lying to the police! He’s a scientist, a mentor, not some Al Capone from those stupid old movies you watch.”

“Then how else would you explain it?”

“I don’t know, coincidences happen every day!”

“Really,” Dante said incredulously. “Coincidences like being called away to the police less than an hour before you’re supposed to talk to a reporter? Coincidences like getting a note with vaguely threatening language telling you to ‘reconsider your actions or else’ approximately two seconds before the cops show up?”

“Mijo,” Mama said quietly. “You must admit, esto parece más que una coincidencia.”

Cisco stood again, pacing, tugging both hands through his hair in frustration.

“I’m telling you, he’s not like that! This is Doctor Wells! Doctor Harrison Wells! He’s the best scientist of his generation, he’s going to change the world!”

“And how do you think men like this change the world?” Pop said quietly. 

Cisco paused in his pacing, looked at his father. Pop hadn't moved, was sitting still, too still, a tired rigid hand at his temple.

He looked up, suddenly, at his son.

“How do you think men like this change the world, Francisco?” Pop repeated, his voice tighter. “Powerful men, men with money, with influence, with genius. How do you think they’re able to get so far? It's because men like this think nothing of destroying people who are in their way.”

There was anger behind his father’s eyes. But worse than that, there was fear. Cisco gulped.

“Pop,” he said, trying to dissipate the feeling of ice creeping down his back. “He’s not - he wouldn’t - what would even be the point of sending the cops over to me? I mean, I was a tiny kid when Armando disappeared. It’s not like I’d be a real suspect.”

Cisco’s father sighed heavily, dropped his fear-filled eyes. “To prove a point. He’s proving he has the ability to frame you, to alter evidence, to make people suspicious of you. He’s proving that, the moment you step outside his line, he can snap his fingers and make your life impossible.”

“That’s, that’s not-”

“Tell me this, Francisco,” Pop said, eyes snapping back up. “You’ve spent time in his lab. Does he have the ability to fake evidence?”

Cisco thought of the endless centrifuges and chemicals and impossible experiments that littered STAR Labs. He thought of the young talent Wells loved to bring in, talent that would do anything Wells asked, so thrilled to work for him they wouldn’t even wonder why. Talent like him.

He gulped. “Yeah, he does.”

Pop nodded. “That is what he’s trying to tell you. That is what today was for.”

This was, this was impossible. 

Cisco sat heavily on the floor. His breaths were coming in quick and shallow. 

This couldn’t be happening. Doctor Wells wouldn’t just do this, he could just do this. This was all a mistake. Right?

He wouldn’t just throw Cisco away. He had come to Cisco, had chosen him, had looked him right in the eye and said _I see something special in you._

But - Doctor Wells had also fired him. Had threatened him, that day in his office. _If you tell a soul about this, I will make sure the only job you get in science is teaching it to high school juniors._

He had refused to see Cisco, had deleted the proof from his computer, had made his closest friends doubt him. For fucks sake, apparently he was the kind of person who would let a particle accelerator explode to conduct illegal experiments. 

Cisco had been grasping for explanations, wishing that something would become clear, that suddenly all this would make sense, that Doctor Wells would see reason and apologize. 

But maybe that day was never coming. Maybe this is just who Doctor Wells was. 

He drew his knees up to his chest, started hyperventilating a bit. He could hear Mama’s voice faintly near his ear, could feel her hand on his shoulder. It was hard to focus on any of it. 

Oh god, what was he going to do?

Cisco’s head snapped back up. “We can’t just let this happen. We have to go to the police.”

Pop’s expression filled with alarm. “No! Absolutamente no!”

“We have to tell someone what’s going on, Pop! We can give the cops that letter, it's evidence.”

“That letter is worded vaguely enough that no cop in the world will see it as a threat!”

"Well then, I'll tell them it's a threat!"

"And who will they believe, Francisco? Harrison Wells is a wealthy powerful man, most of the city sees him as a hero for bringing research jobs here. He donated a wing to the library, he has lunch with the mayor. Who do you think they will believe?"

And Cisco already knew the answer. He knew because of a thousand small moments he'd felt over a lifetime, reactions to his looks or the neighborhood he lived in or his name. He knew exactly who the police would side with. Who the city would side with. 

Pop was generally a quiet man. An accountant, mostly invested in his work and his numbers. If Pop was so worried by this, what did that mean? Should he stop? Let Wells move forward, do whatever experiment he wanted with the accelerator, move on with his life? Let him dose the city with dark matter?

No. No, Cisco couldn't let that happen.

Cisco gulped the fear down and stood, fast, blood rushing to his head. “Well I have to do something! Dante, give me the number of Mason Biggs again, I’ll tell him about this.”

Pop stood to meet him. “Francisco, if you tell the press, the doctor will send people after you! That was the entire point of the letter.”

“So what,” Cisco said, voice raising. “I should just let him get away with it? If this accelerator goes off, people could get hurt, people could die!”

“And if you tell anyone, you could get hurt!” Pop was yelling now too, looking increasingly panicked. “People like this don’t think twice about stepping on people like us!”

“¡Es mi decisión!” Cisco screamed. “¡No soy un niño!”

“¡Eres _mi_ niño!” Pop countered, voice desperate. “Podrías resultar herido, and I can’t let that happen!”

Suddenly the room felt too small. His mother’s wide eyes, his brother’s silent shock, his father’s panicked fury. It was all too much. 

Cisco stormed from the room, opened the back door, and fled into the night air. 

* * *

He didn’t know how long he walked around outside. He walked through familiar streets, barely noticing the neighborhood around him. At one point someone he knew from high school saw him, tried to chat. Cisco had no idea if he got through the conversation seeing remotely normal.

What was he going to do?

Eventually, he found himself sitting in the alleyway behind Mr. Soler’s house. He was very familiar with this alley. Mr. Soler had been Dante’s first piano teacher. Cisco had spent a lot of time here after school, waiting for Dante to be done with his scales.

He’d even found the giant whiteboard he took to college out here, leaning against the dumpster at the end of the row. He remembered Dante whining as they went to retrieve it, remembered him saying that Cisco “better make all this worth it by becoming Bill Nye the Science Guy.”

That had been before everything. Before college, before the wedge between Dane and Cisco grew wide. Before Harrison Wells had promised him he could do anything, had promised him they’d change the world together. Before Cisco had felt like he _belonged_ at STAR Labs, before he’d found a place just for him. 

Being a child in this place felt a million miles away. 

Cisco sat on the concrete. For a moment, he stared up at the stars faint in the city light. 

Doctor Wells had taken him to a high power telescope once; one of the special ones out in Nevada. Cisco had officially been there as a consultant, but Wells had taken him up to that telescope and told him _this is why I brought you here. So you can see this. So you can see the glory of the universe, and know that we’ll unlock its secrets. That we’ll bring these shining stars down to earth._

Cisco put his head in his hands. What was he going to do?

He shivered in the cold and watched his breath fog in the air. He listened to cars pass and the neighbor's TV and the distant sound of the train. 

Eventually, he heard another sound, sneakers slowly creaking on the wet concrete. Heading his way. 

“Hey.”

Dante’s voice was quiet in the night air. Cisco didn’t look up. 

He heard Dante sigh, felt him settle in next to him on the concrete. 

They sat in silence for several minutes. 

“You know,” Dante said eventually. “I remember once when we were kids, Mama picked us up real late. I spent extra time on my lesson, and when I got out it was already dark. And you were just sitting here, looking up at the sky. You couldn’t have been more than seven, eight.”

Cisco breathed in, breathed out. He didn’t know what Dante was trying to say, trying to do. 

“And you sat here,” Dante continued. “And you pointed up at the sky. And you told me ‘that’s Orion.’”

Cisco looked up into the sky. Sure enough, hanging high above Ms. Martinez’s old garage, were the three stars of Orion’s Belt. 

“And you told me all about the old Greek myth that inspired the name. You told me all about each of the stars in it, how far away they were. Told me about how when we look at stars, we’re looking at the distant past. And then you kept pointing to other constellations, other stars. Canis Major, Severus -”

“Sirius,” Cisco corrected. 

“Right, Sirius. God, you must have talked for a good half hour until Mama showed up. You were just this little kid, and you had all that knowledge tucked away. All this knowledge about something most people never even look up at.”

Cisco looked over at his brother, staring pensively up at the sky. “What are you saying?”

Dante glanced at Cisco with a small, sad smile. “I’m saying you’re a genius. I could see it, from that day out here in the alley. I knew you were something special. I was jealous of that for a long time. But-”

At this Dante paused, bit his lip, ran a hand over the back of his neck. Looked over at his brother, trust in his eyes. 

“But I knew you knew what you were talking about. So I know, now, that if you’re saying something needs to happen, if something needs to be stopped - then it needs to be stopped.”

Cisco turned towards Dante, hopeful disbelief stirring in his mind. 

“I guess I’m saying Pop’s wrong," Dante continued. "If you think whatever’s happening at STAR Labs will be bad, I believe you’re right. And if you want to stop it, however you want to stop it, I’ll help you.”

The hopeful feeling sparked, and Cisco found himself smiling. “Really?

Dante grinned a little and slapped Cisco on the back. “Of course, hermano. We’re family. We’re in this together.”

For the first time in days, for the first time since he’d left STAR, Cisco felt the fear truly leaving him. Yes, he wasn’t exactly sure how Dante could help. His brother was certainly no engineer. But Dante believed him, Dante cared. Cisco had someone on his side, had his brother on his side. 

And Cisco felt that maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.


End file.
